AFRICANA
STUDIES
Vanishing Evidence Essay Series
Vanishing Evidence Essay Series
Prof. Manu Ampim
June
2005 issue Original black ka-statue of Tutankhamen
CAIRIO
SYMPOSIUM (1974)
The
question of “What race were the ancient Egyptians?” was emphatically resolved
at the historic international Cairo Symposium, held from January 28 – February
3, 1974. The United Nations Educational,
Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) convened 20 of the world’s top
Egyptologists to debate the race of the founders of ancient Egyptian
civilization.[1]
Until this symposium, it was
assumed by the vast majority of European Egyptologists that the ancient
Egyptians were either Caucasians or western Asiatics. Outside of Black scholars, few writers in the
world agreed that the people of pharaonic Egypt were black Africans. At the Cairo Symposium only two African scholars,
Cheikh Anta Diop and Theophilé Obenga, held that the
Egyptians were black Africans, while the other participants took opposing
positions against the Diop-Obenga thesis. Their scholarly opponents offered virtually
no evidence to substantiate the two long-held popular theories of the western
Asiatic or Caucasoid origin of the ancient Egyptians. These popular theories certainly needed to be
proven, because they are contradicted by all of the objective evidence, such as
the temple and tomb reliefs, paintings, sculpture, written records of other
nations, linguistic terms, mummy remains, Egyptian customs, and royal and
spiritual symbols.[2]
Armed with a formidable body of
evidence from numerous academic disciplines, Diop presented specific
information to prove the black origins of Kemet (ancient Egypt). It is obvious from the conference report that
Diop dominated the proceedings, and confronted with his solid arguments, most
of the participants changed their positions during the conference.
Prof. Torgny
Save-Soderbergh (Sweden) and other participants
argued that the concept of race was now
outmoded and not appropriate for characterizing the ancient Egyptians. Prof. Abdelgadir Abdalla (Sudan)
stated that it was more important to focus on the ancient Egyptian achievements
rather than their race. Prof. G. Ghallab
(Egypt)
stated that the Egyptians were “Caucasoids.” However, the theory of an ancient population which
was “white” with dark or black pigmentation was abandoned during the conference,
as there was no evidence given to prove this assertion.
Professors El Nadury (Egypt) and Grottanelli (Italy) argued that the Egyptian
population was not a pure race and could only be regarded as “mixed.” Prof. Jean Vercoutter
(France) remarked that “Egypt was
African in its way of writing, in its culture, and in its way of
thinking.” He stated, however, that “the
inhabitants of the Nile
Valley had always been
mixed.”
Prof. Jean Leclant
(France)
added that there was an “African character in the Egyptian temperament and way
of thinking” but that the “unity of the Egyptian people was not racial but
cultural.” He stated the civilization
was “neither white nor Negro.” Prof. Peter
Shinnie (Canada), Vercoutter and others argued
that terms such as “black” was too subjective and not
well defined.
Dr. Diop protested that these
were not positive arguments presenting any evidence, but simply negative
statements against his black African
origins position. In fact Maurice Glélé, the neutral UNESCO representative, interjected on at
least two occasions to state that if classifying people in terms of white,
black, or yellow are so debatable and subjective then a revision should be made
of the entire terminology of world history to avoid misconceptions. It is clear that the participants abandoned
the old Caucasoid and western Asiatic theories and instead retreated to a new
“mixed race” position, without presenting any meaningful evidence to support
this new theory.
Nevertheless, the conclusion of
the official UNESCO report indicates the triumph of Diop and his colleague Obenga. It stated, “Although the preparatory working
paper sent out by UNESCO gave particulars of what was desired, not all
participants had prepared communications comparable with the painstakingly
researched contributions of Professors Cheikh Anta Diop and Obenga. There was consequently a real lack of balance
in the discussions.”[3]
In laymen terms, Cheikh Anta Diop and Theophilé Obenga gave out
an important academic spanking on a world stage. Western Egyptologists now unsuccessfully try
and downplay the significance of Diop’s triumph over
their colleagues.
MAGAZINE
FANTASIES: NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC & KMT
Since the 1974 Cairo Symposium,
the “Caucasoid origins” theory has been slowly abandoned in academic
writings. However, this fanciful view
has continued to enjoy life in the popular media, such as in TV docu-dramas,
modern paintings, cartoons and comic books, museum displays which focus on the
foreign period of Greco-Roman occupation, and drawings in scholarly and popular
magazines such as National Geographic. For decades, National Geographic Magazine
has played a prominent role in misrepresenting ancient Egyptian images, beginning
with its influential October 1941 issue which included 23 paintings by H. M.
Herget, and text by William Hayes from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. This article not only presented almost two
dozen wild fantasy drawings of pale-skinned ancient Egyptians, but also in this
series Herget represented the short-statured Africans (called “Deng” in Egyptian; and so-called
“Pygmy” by modern Westerners) as an obscene caricature with a leash around his
left ankle, black skin, outrageously large red lips, and almost ape-like. This “scholarly” article with its racist
drawings covered almost a 100 pages of text.[4]
Unfortunately, these outrageous National Geographic images are still
used today by Euro-American scholars as illustrations in publications, and in
television documentaries to supplement their “academic” writings. National
Geographic continues to be an important leader in promoting imaginary
Caucasian images of ancient Egyptians.
This publication has set a precedent with its October 1941 issue, which
it and other publications continue to use more than a half century later.
For example KMT Magazine, the over-priced ($8.95) California-based publication,
in its Spring 2005 issue continues to reproduce the image of the Deng, which is most vile and absurd anti-African
painting in this 1941 series.[5] The
editors of KMT -- like National Geographic -- are completely
shameless in their racist representations of African people. This ongoing fraud
and deliberate misrepresentation of ancient images demonstrates a relentless
attempt to steal African heritage and denigrate Black people in the process.
KING TUTANKHAMEN & FACIAL RECONSTRUCTION
There is a current controversy around
the exhibit, “Tutankhamen
and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs,” at the Los Angeles County Museum (LACMA).
The recent shocking facial
reconstruction of King Tutankhamen as a “North African Caucasoid” has caused
considerable concern and protests from the public, because this modern bust of
King Tut is not a real artifact, yet it is placed in the same exhibit as the
authentic artifacts from his tomb. At the
LACMA exhibit (until November 15, 2005), visitors are misled to believe that
this 21st century artistic interpretation and reconstruction of
Tutankhamen is connected to the actual artifacts, when in fact there is
absolutely no such relationship. National Geographic, the usual ally of
racial propaganda and deceit, carried this same “Caucasoid” image as a frontpage cover story in its June 2005 issue. The magazine
appropriately indicated that this image is “the new face of King
Tut.” This facial reconstruction was
done under the name of “forensic science,” as modern artists have entered the
digital age and thus have moved from stencil and paintbrush to computer
graphics. With the term “forensic” it is
often assumed that this implies an “exact science,” although this is not the
case.
Forensic reconstruction has been
used since 1895 with the pioneering work of the German anatomist Wilhelm His. Over the past 100 years, computer technologies
and digital imaging have now redefined the forensic field. Computer tomography (CT) scans, for example, chart
the contours and topography of the skull and obtain detailed data that allow researchers
and artists to create a three-dimensional likeness of the deceased person. Forensic reconstruction and illustrative art
are used to help identify crime victims, and are used in archeology to create a
likeness of a deceased person from the distant past. Forensic reconstruction, then, is “any art
that aids in the identification of unknown deceased persons.”
However, although this forensic
technique has significantly developed over the past century it still remains an
art, not an exact science. In constructing an image, forensic artists
have to give a “guesstimate” of the person’s nose, lips, ears, hair, ethnicity and
skin color. These gaps are filled in by
the overall working assumptions that the artists are using. These data are often supplied by
anthropologists or archeologists who are also working on the case. Thus, it is important that the data inputted
is accurate, because the wrong data will always lead to wrong conclusions. In other words, “garbage
in, means garbage out.”
The latest controversial forensic
reconstruction of Tutankhamen is the result of CT scans in January 2005,
carried out by Egypt’s
Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), under the direction of the Council
director, Dr. Zahi Hawass.
|
Zahi Hawass standing over Tutankhamen’s
mummy, with the two brown-skinned images of Tutankhamen on the far left.
(Tomb of Tutankhamen). Hawass does not wear gloves or a face mask to protect the
mummy from bacteria.
The CT
machine scanned Tutankhamen’s mummy from head to toe and created 1,700 digital
x-ray images. The SCA wanted to
determine with the scans how King Tut died.
This question is still not known, but it is certain that he was not
killed from a blow to the head as was speculated by many Egyptologists and
historians. However, the CT scans did
give Hawass a chance to commission teams of forensic
artists to reconstruct Tut’s image as a “North African Caucasoid.” This Caucasoid hypothesis is completely
imaginary and not supported by any first-hand evidence. It completely ignores all of the dark-skinned
Africoid paintings of Tutankhamen on the walls of his tomb, his brown and black
skinned statues, his Africoid thick lips, and his all-black family
members. There were three forensic teams
(American, Egyptian, and French) that each produced totally different results
from the same CT scan produced data. The three teams created their reconstructions
separately -- the Americans and French working from a plastic skull, the
Egyptians working directly from the CT scans.
The French and Egyptians knew they were recreating King Tut, but the
Americans were not told where the skull was from. Totally ignoring the actual results, Hawass claims that "The results of the three
teams were identical or very similar in the basic shape of the face, the size,
shape and setting of the eyes, and the proportion of the skull." Despite the claims of Hawass, any reasonable person
can view the forensic results of the three teams and determine that the images are
fundamentally different.
Results of the French reconstruction team.
Results of the Egyptian reconstruction
team.
Results of the American reconstruction team.
It is obvious that all three
versions are significantly different, particularly the treatment of the neck,
chin, lips, and head shape. Hawass
himself even admitted that “the noses of
all three are different.”
The color was arbitrarily added
by the French team without any relevant data.
The National Geographic article
indicates that, “Skin tone, which could have varied from
very dark to very light, was based on an average shade of modern Egyptians.” There have been no meaningful studies or data
collected regarding the skin tones of ancient or modern Egyptians, thus the
pale color of the French reconstruction is completely arbitrary and lacks
credibility.
Hawass, representing the SCA,
claims that the results of the three teams are identical or very similar in the
shape of the face, the size, shape, and setting of the eyes, and the
proportions of the skull. Further, he
even stretching all credibility and further asserts that “the
shape of the face and skull [of the three results] are remarkably similar to a
famous image of Tutankhamen…where he is shown…rising from a lotus blossom.”
When the modern forensic images
are compared to the authentic Tutankhamen lotus flower image, it is plain to
see that they are dramatically different and that Hawass is under a heavy
illusion as his statements totally lack honesty:
American
reconstruction Tutankhamen lotus image Tutankhamen actual skull
Tutankhamen half-body
sculpture Tutankhamen lotus image French reconstruction
Egyptian
reconstruction Tutankhamen
lotus image Tutankhamen
on throne
1. The three different teams came up with differing shapes of nose, ears, lips, chin/jaw, and neck;
2. The assignment of the
skin color was completely arbitrary and was based on an assumption of the “average”
color of the modern Egyptian population.
*See Dr. Ahmed Saleh, current member of the SCA, for his opposition to the
position of Zahi Hawass,
the problem with the “false image of Tutankhamen,” and the problem with facial
reconstructions of Egyptians.
Finally, it is of interest to note that nowhere does
Zahi Hawass, the Supreme
Council of Antiquities, or National
Geographic show any of the original Tutankhamen images or his actual skull next
to the three modern images for the readers to compare. We are simply given Hawass’
biased personal opinion that all of the images are “identical” or “remarkably
similar.” National Geographic writer A.R. Williams further misleads the
public with his statement that the CT scans provide “precise data for an
accurate reconstruction.”
|
“The false image of
Tutankhamen” (left) compared to original Africoid images from Tut’s tomb.
2002 TUTANKHAMEN RECONSTRUCTIONS
There were two other forensic
versions of King Tutankhamen made in 2002, and again they look totally
different from all of the others. The
process of creating these Tut images was equally unreliable as the 2005
versions, and it involved mere guesswork.
To create the modern 2002 Tut
bust, scientists in Britain
and New Zealand
used digital images to produce a fiberglass image of Tutankhamen. In another version, Dr. Robin Richards of University
College London scanned the faces of modern people “the same age, sex and an
appropriate ethnic group, so that we've got a suitable average face to start
the warping process.” This information allowed Richards and his colleagues to
create an “average face for Tutankhamen,” including the nose, lips, and eyes. The digital image was later made into a
sculpture for the Science Museum in London.
However, Richards was correct to point
out the obvious fact, ”It's never going to be a perfect portrait - there are just
too many uncertainties, even if experts could venture back to the tomb and take
a CT scan.”
|
Left &
Middle: In the UK,
specialist facial modeler Alex Fort uses the computer images to model the Tut
head in clay then cast it in fiberglass.
Right: This Tut image was created by Dr. Robin Richards and his
colleagues in 2002.
1983 TUTANKHAMEN RECONSTRUCTIONS
In 1983 Betty
Pat. Gatliff, who has over 30 years experience
in doing facial reconstructions in clay for police agencies and various
museums, did a facial reconstruction of King Tut. It was pictured in Life Magazine in 1983 and
again in National Geographic World in
1985. Gatliff’s
reconstruction is yet another distinct version of Tutankhamen, as she depicts
him with brownish skin (closer to reddish-brown) and a round face. Gatliff’s Tut version
is not very accurate but it is closer to the authentic images than the three 2005
versions, as she depicts him with the brown skin tone that Tutankhamen is
always portrayed with by the ancient African artists (other than Tutankhamen’s
two jet-black ka
statues, now in the Cairo Museum).
CONCLUSION
Little more needs to be said
about this unreliable forensic art reconstruction process, as every forensic artist for the past
twenty years has produced a unique version of Tutankhamen. Despite this fact, the public is being misled
by the SCA and National Geographic to
believe that the scanned digital images have somehow made the work of modern forensic
artists completely “accurate” and thoroughly “scientific.” I indicated in 2002 that we should be careful
of taking *any* forensic reconstruction serious. There is no reason to
replace authentic and original paintings and sculpture of Tutankhamen (or
anyone else) with modern artistic guesswork and biased interpretations.
Even if the forensic results showed Tutankhamen as a black African, it would be
folly to fall for the game of modern propagandists, who are attempting to move
the public away from the primary sources toward modern interpretations based on
racial illusions and imaginary “North African Caucasoids.”
Back in 2002, there was much debate about whether the King Tut forensic
reconstruction by the Science Museum in the UK was African enough. I
argued that the details of the modern reconstruction didn't matter because we
already know precisely what Tutankhamen looked like; the African artists
left us a clear record of his Africoid appearance.
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Postscript: Previous Examinations
In 1925, three years after the discovery of the tomb, the mummy of King Tutankhamen was dismantled by Howard Carter’s team, which was interested primarily in recovering the almost 150 jewels and other items wrapped with the body and gaining scientific information from the body itself. In order to remove the objects from the body and the body from the coffin, Carter’s team cut the body into a number of pieces (for example, the trunk was cut in half, the arms and legs were detached). The head, cemented by the solidified resins to the golden mask, was severed, and removed from the mask with hot knives. Carter placed the mummy back in the tomb in 1926. The mummy has now been X-rayed three times, once in 1968 by a team from the University of Liverpool under R.G. Harrison, again in 1978 by J.E. Harris of the University of Michigan, and in 2005 by Z. Hawass and the Supreme Council of Antiquities.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] UNESCO,
The Peopling of Ancient Egypt
and the Deciphering of Meroitic Script, January 28-February 3, 1974 (Paris:
UNESCO, 1978).
2. The
symbols that are central to ancient Egyptian culture are exclusively African
symbols such as the ostrich feather
representing divine law; leopard-skin
outfit worn by high priests and pharaohs; lotus flower representing spiritual transformation and also
southern Egypt; sledge plant representing
kingship in southern Egypt; ivory and
granite used for utensils and
construction respectively; the country name KMT
meaning the black land or the land of black people; the southern orientation where the term imnty means both west and right (in the sense of
direction), and i3bty means both east
and left. Thus for the ancient
Egyptians, on a map the region of Asia would
be to the left rather than to the
right. The animals in the Egyptian
religious system are exclusively African such as Djehuty (baboon), Sekhmet
(lion), Het-Heru (cow), Heru (Hawk), Anpu (jackal), Khepera (scarab beetle), etc.
In the paintings and sculpture the standard color of the ancient
Egyptian men was various shades of brown,
and the women were depicted as tan, brown, and sometimes dark yellow. Both genders were also depicted with a black skin tone, particularly the men in
various tomb scenes dating back to the Pyramid Age. The people of Kemet did not depict themselves
as Asian or European types and are never shown with white or pale skin on
authentic artifacts until the foreign period.
3. UNESCO,
Peopling, p. 91.
4.
William
Hayes, “Daily Life in Ancient Egypt,”
National Geographic Magazine (October
1941), pp. 419-515.
5
Omar
Zuhdi, “The African Journeys of Count Harkhuf & the Gift of a Dancing
Dwarf,” KMT Magazine, vol. 16, no. 1
(Spring 2005), pp. 74-80.
August 2005
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